The Art of Falling UnGracefully
by Embrie Everatte
Summary: That pedestal can only get so high before you get light headed, pass out, fall, and crack your skull open on the polished hardwood below.


_The Art of Falling (Un)Gracefully_ by _Embrie Everatte  
_nov/17/04  
That pedestal can only get so high before you get light headed, pass out, fall, and crack your skull open on the polished hardwood below.  
Amy Sherman-Palladino

This is not a shipper story, so don't ask me to put so and so together. This falls closer in relation to a character study. If you can't review without telling me so and so belongs with so and so; follow the link in my profile, my dearies.

×××---×××

_Don't let fear of falling hold you down-John Gregory and Jeff Silbar_

×××---×××

She absolutely hated New York City. Especially Brooklyn. She hated islands, and condemned brick buildings that stank of alcohol and human excrement. Yet, here she was. Once again, sitting on the steps of an old brownstone. Waiting. She'd been waiting for an hour. She hated waiting. She looked around, a nervous habit that hadn't escaped her in her six years of New York life.

She was still scared.

Scared to death that the man sitting in the alley was going to rob, rape and kill her. Scared that _he_ wasn't coming home. Scared that the man across the street, waving the pistol at the fruit man, was going to open fire and a stray bullet would hit her.

"You. Girl. Off my step!"

Rory stood and turned around, "Pau Chin So? I'm waiting for Jess, the apartment is locked."

Pau Chin So; a short man, about fifty; with wide set almond eyes that tilted up at the corners and far more Italian in him than his name implied, owned the hock shop and thus the apartment above it that Jess inhabited. "Mariano didn't pay rent again. Tossed him out."

Cursing to herself, Rory ran a hand through her hair. "Do you know where he went?"

"He said something about Curtis on Staten Island," his face immediately stonied, "Now, you! Girl. Off my step!"

Managing a half smile at the senile riffraff, Rory began walking away, "Thank you Mister Pavolli!" she ran to the subway, not surprised when she sank down the steps to find several people sleeping. Stepping up to one of them, she kicked him. "I swear to God, Jess, if you don't get up…" She trailed off as he opened his eyes.

Shaking the remnants of sleep from his head, "Hey Ror, what're you doing here?"

"Well, I was headed to Staten, but then I saw you didn't make it there," she drug him to his feet, "What're you doing, Jess? Where's your stuff?"

"Pau trashed it. And, as to what I'm doing, no cash for mass transit," he shoved his hands in his pockets and pulled them back out, empty.

Sighing, she rubbed her left temple, "How long have you been down here?"

She knew she wouldn't like the answer when he shrugged. After a moment he answered, "Day before yesterday, around noon."

"Why didn't you call me?" she knocked him one the head with her palm.

Sticking his hands back in his pockets, he wiggled them, "No coin."

Shaking her head in annoyance, she began pulling him to the booth. "Call me collect!"

"Every time I do that, you freak out!"

Sighing, she looked at him, "Yeah, because it isn't my job to pick up milk and come to the island just to deliver it! I have a job, yes; but I don't have expendable funds for the charter." They reached the booth and soon were boarding the train.

"Where are you dropping me?"

She smacked him in the arm, "My place. You can take that much needed shower. No skimping on the toiletries this time! When I say I want you clean from head to toe, I mean it," she rolled her eyes. "When did I become your mother?"

He shrugged and leaned back on the seat, "First time Pau kicked me out?"

"Jess, you've got to stop this. Get a job; get a place, preferably on the mainland; settle. Is that really so difficult?" she asked, playing with her ear.

He nodded, "Apparently, since I have nothing you listed."

"God, Jess," she gestured with her hands. "Why can't you just—be human?"

"Not in the programming, Gilmore."

She just sat. She stared straight ahead.

And it worried Jess. She _never_ gave up. Never. She was stubborn and more cocky than she'd ever admit. Arrogant as hell, and extremely humble, gracious, and precocious at the same time. So, whenever he got the last word, he was worried. "Do you want me to try this 'viable member of society' thing?"

She didn't say anything.

And he worried. "Just say the word."

Silence.

"I need to start by getting a job, don't I?" he nudged her, "Would you give me one?"

The man across from them proclaims he's Demi Moore's love child. Jess estimates him as about seventy years old.

"D'you think your guest room is free?"

Quiet.

"C'mon Ror, I need you not to be mad at me. I know that that is a lot to ask, but please. I'm being extremely uncharacteristic," he gestured, "What with the begging and the talking and the patheticness of this whole damn situation."

"Six seventy-five an hour, forty-three hours. You paint that room and you may consider yourself castrated and out of my three hundred dollar deposit." She paused, "No loud noise or music after ten or before eight. You will help pay both rent and groceries; electricity, water, garbage, heat, AC, cable, et cetera, et cetera will be included in your rent statement. I'm evicting you after six months if I feel like it."

They sit in silence for several minutes before the man across from them claims to be Bruce Willis' father.

Rory and Jess look at each other.

Breaking the new silence, Jess whispers a 'Thank You'.

×××---×××

I have been updating and revising just this chapter for months, I swear. I know that my characterization isn't all that great, but I'm really trying. For anyone wondering, this takes place in 2014, so their around thirty. Please review, and I'm going to reiterate:

This is not a shipper story, so don't ask me to put so and so together. This falls closer in relation to a character study. If you can't review without telling me so and so belongs with so and so; follow the link in my profile, my dearies.

Em


End file.
